Category: Personal

Last week-end was my first week-end in a long time where I wasn’t sick, worried sick about a cat, or rushing a cat to the vet.

Quintus is in remission from his diabetes and doing well. If you have a diabetic cat, join FDMB.

Erica had an acute episode of something gastro-intestinal (pancreatitis? tummy bug? something else?) on a background of something chronic. She’s over the acute episode and we are (without urgency) investigating the chronic condition.

I probably still have my unwelcome host but by cutting out dairy completely I can keep the worst of the symptoms at bay and remain functional while we continue our investigations with the specialist doc.

My hip still bothers me a bit but my blocked back is clearly linked to the giardia digestive issues.

I am trying to focus more on me and less on always being there for others above all. The realisation that my urge to help others first and foremost is something I need to learn to channel is becoming more and more acute. This article framing compulsive use of technology as “addiction to social interaction” really rings true for me.

So, more down time. More alone time. More energy invested in things I want to feel more motivated and enthusiastic about. Silly things like making my flat a place I really enjoy spending time in. Cleaning. Tidying. Just doing nothing. I’m looking forward to being able to ski and do judo, I really miss moving.

Two OTM podcast episodes to listen to for you:

Blame it on the Alcohol: interesting perspective on alcohol across the ages and borders (France vs. US for example), and a welcome critique of the ubiquitous AA in American culture, how Hollywood promoted it and labeled abstinence the one and only “cure”, despite the 12-step programme being anything but successful by any measure as a solution to excessive drinking. (No disrespect to my meeting-going friends.)

The Safety Net Just Got a Little Less Safe: back to the 2016 series busting poverty myths. How the current system pushes people into poverty, and a poignant account of how it can happen, by a mother who got evicted after being a victim of a crime on the property the family were renting.

Happy listening. I’m going to put the tech away and stare out of the train window.

[en] My friend giardia lamblia has probably kept me company for a good couple of years. Two antibiotic courses later, looking at a third. If you have any kind of tropical parasitic infection, go see a specialist.

Beginning of October, I started working in Fribourg, with an hour of commute to get to my office. 45 minutes on the train. I decided to use that time to blog. And I did, to some extent. But not as much as I initially planned.

7 years ago today, Bagha.
In less than two weeks, it will be a year since Tounsi’s death.I don’t know how long Quintus has got. I hope it’s longer than I fear.

I’m not big on the whole “pet parent”, “rainbow bridge”, and “mommy” thing. My cats are my cats, even though there is a kinship of caring for children and pets. I don’t believe in anything outside of this material world, in any god or afterlife. I’m also not into lengthy quotation posts. But this tale tells a deep truth about loving a pet: it’s choosing tears.

THE LOVING ONES by Anne Kolaczyk

The little orange boy stopped. Behind him, kitties were playing, chasing each other and wrestling in the warm sunshine. It looked like so much fun, but in front of him, through the clear stillness of the pond’s water, he could see his mommy. And she was crying.

He pawed at the water, trying to get at her, and when that didn’t work, he jumped into the shallow water. All that got him was wet and Mommy’s image danced away in the ripples. “Mommy!” he cried.

“Is something wrong?”

The little orange boy turned around. A lady was standing at the edge of the pond, her eyes sad but filled with love. The little orange boy sighed and walked out of the water.

“There’s been a mistake,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be here.” He looked back at the water. It was starting to still again and his mommy’s image was coming back. “I’m just a baby. Mommy said it had to be a mistake. She said I wasn’t supposed to come here yet.”

The kind lady sighed and sat down on the grass. The little orange boy climbed into her lap. It wasn’t Mommy’s lap, but it was almost as good. When she started to pet him and scratch under his chin like he liked, he started to purr. He hadn’t wanted to, but he couldn’t help it.

“I’m afraid there is no mistake. You are supposed to be here and your mommy knows it deep down in her heart,” the lady said. The little orange boy sighed and laid his head on the lady’s leg. “But she’s so sad. It hurts me to see her cry. And daddy too.”

“But they knew right from the beginning this would happen.”

“That I was sick?” That surprised the little orange boy. No one had ever said anything and he had listened when they thought he was sleeping. All he had heard them talk about was how cute he was or how fast he was or how big he was getting.

“No, not that you were sick,” the lady said. “But you see, they chose tears.”

“No, they didn’t,” the little orange boy argued. Who would choose to cry?

The lady gently brushed the top of his head with a kiss. It made him feel safe and loved and warm – but he still worried about his mommy. “Let me tell you a story,” the lady said.

The little orange boy looked up and saw other animals gathering around. Cats – Big Boy and Snowball and Shamus and Abby and little Cleo and Robin. Merlin and Toby and Iggy and Zachary. Sweetie and Kamatte and OBie. Dogs too- Sally and Baby and Morgan and Rocky and Belle. Even a lizard named Clyde and some rats named Saffron and Becky and a hamster named Odo.

They all lay down near the kind lady and looked up at her, waiting.

She smiled at them and began:

A long long time ago, the Loving Ones went to the Angel in Charge. They were lonesome and asked the Angel to help them.

The Angel took them to a wall of windows and let them look out the first window at all sorts of things – dolls and stuffed animals and cars and toys and sporting events.

“Here are things you can love,” the Angel said. “They will keep you from being lonesome.”

“Oh, thank you,” the Loving Ones said. “These are just what we need.”

“You have chosen Pleasure,” the Angel told them.

But after a time the Loving Ones came back to the Angel in Charge. “Things are okay to love,” they said. “But they don’t care that we love them.”

The Angel in Charge led them over to the second window. It looked out at all sorts of wild animals. “Here are animals to love,” he said. “They will know you love them.”

So the Loving Ones hurried out to care for the wild animals.

“You have chosen Satisfaction,” the Angel said.

Some of the Loving Ones worked at zoos and wild animal preserves, some just had bird feeders in their yards, but after a time they all came back to the Angel in Charge.

“They know we love them,” they told the Angel. “But they don’t love us back. We want to be loved in return.”

So the Angel took them to the third window and showed them lots of people walking around, hurrying places. “Here are people for you to love,” the Angel told them.

So the Loving Ones hurried off to find other people to love.

“You have chosen Commitment,” the Angel said.

But after a time a lot of Loving Ones came back to the Angel in Charge.

“People were okay to love,” they said. “But sometimes they stopped loving us and left. They broke our hearts.”

The Angel just shook his head. “I cannot help you,” he said. “You will have to be satisfied with the choices I gave you.”

As the Loving Ones were leaving, someone saw a window off to one side and hurried to look out. Through it, they could see puppies and kittens and dogs and cats and lizards and hamsters and ferrets. The other Loving Ones hurried over.

“What about these?” they asked.

But the Angel just tried to shoo them away. “Those are Personal Empathy Trainers,” he said. “But there’s a problem with their system operations.”

“Would they know that we love them?” someone asked.

“Yes,” the Angel said.

“Would they love us back?” another asked.

“Yes,” the Angel said.

“Will they stop loving us?” someone else asked.

“No,” the Angel admitted. “They will love you forever.”

“Then these are what we want,” the Loving Ones said.

But the Angel was very upset. “You don’t understand,” he told them. “You will have to feed these animals.”

“That’s all right,” the Loving Ones said.

“You will have to clean up after them and take care of them forever.”

“We don’t care.”

The Loving Ones did not listen. They went down to where the Pets were and picked them up, seeing the love in their own hearts reflected in the animals’ eyes.

“They were not programmed right,” the Angel said.

“We can’t offer a warranty. We don’t know how durable they are. Some of their systems malfunction very quickly, others last a long time.”

But the Loving Ones did not care. They were holding the warm little bodies and finding their hearts so filled with love that they thought they would burst.

“We will take our chances,” they said.

“You do not understand.” The Angel tried one more time. “They are so dependent on you that even the most well-made of them is not designed to outlive you. You are destined to suffer their loss.”

The Loving Ones looked at the sweetness in their arms and nodded. “That is how it should be. It is a fair trade for the love they offer.”

The Angel just watched them all go, shaking his head. “You have chosen Tears,” he whispered.

“So it is,” the kind lady told the kitties. “And so each mommy and daddy knows. When they take a baby into their heart, they know that one day it will leave them and they will cry.”

The little orange boy sat up. “So why do they take us in?” he asked.

“Because even a moment of your love is worth years of pain later.”

“Oh.” The little orange boy got off the lady’s lap and went back to the edge of the pond. His mommy was still there, and still crying. “Will she ever stop crying?” he asked the kind lady.

She nodded. “You see, the Angel felt sorry for the Loving Ones, knowing how much they would suffer. He couldn’t take the tears away but he made them special.”

She dipped her hand into the pond and let the water trickle off her fingers. “He made them healing tears, formed from the special water here. Each tear holds bits of all the happy times of purring and petting and shared love. And the promise of love once again. As your mommy cries, she is healing. “It may take a long while, but the tears will help her feel better. In time she will be less sad and she will smile when she thinks of you. And then she will open her heart again to another little baby.”

“But then she will cry again one day,” the little orange boy said.

The lady just smiled at him as she got to her feet. “No, she will love again. That is all she will think about.” She picked up Big Boy and Snowball and gave them hugs, then scratched Morgan’s ear just how she liked.

“Look,” she said. “The butterflies have come. Shall we go over to play?”

The other animals all ran ahead, but the little orange boy wasn’t ready to leave his mommy. “Will I ever get to be with her again?”

The kind lady nodded. “You’ll be in the eyes of every kitty she looks at. You’ll be in the purr of every cat she pets. And late at night, when she’s fast asleep, your spirit will snuggle up close to her and you both will feel at peace. One day soon, you can even send her a rainbow to tell her you’re safe and waiting here for when it’s her turn to come.”

“I would like that,” the little orange boy said and took one long look at his mommy. He saw her smile slightly through her tears and he knew she had remembered the time he almost fell into the bathtub. “I love you, Mommy,” he whispered. “It’s okay if you cry.” He glanced over at the other pets, running and playing and laughing with the butterflies. “Uh, Mommy? I gotta go play now, okay? But I’ll be around, I promise.”

Routine is settling in. As I have mentioned, my time seems to be shrinking. Or speeding up. It’s a good sign when time flies by, but it scares me. I look at my colleagues, some of whom have been in the same position, doing pretty much the same job, for decades — and try to imagine waking up ten years from now, getting up at the same time in the morning, going to the same place, doing the same thing with the same people. This is the life of many, but there’s something scary about it for me.

A year has passed since Tounsi started being ill. It was early November. He had his MRI early December. He died January 1st. It still feels very recent. His ashes are still in a little box in my bookcase — I haven’t felt ready to spread them in the garden yet. I think I should just do it.

Quintus hasn’t been well lately. I took him for a checkup before starting my new job. He has pancreatitis, and developed diabetes as a result. He’s on insulin now (it’s been 10 days) and we are hoping to get the pancreatits under control. He’s been improving, slowly, with a bit of back and forth. But I have to face things: he’s an old cat, going on 17, and we’re lucky he’s still around. I treasure every extra week I get with him, and hope it will be months. But there are no certainties.

And so I face another winter with the prospect of possibly losing a cat. Bagha died just before Christmas, too. I don’t believe in magic, so I’m not scared winter is “more dangerous” for my cats than any other time of the year. But it does mean that I have had some difficult winters — including the one following my mother’s death when I was a child.

My preoccupation with Quintus makes me feel my hours away from home with a particular awareness. My days at work don’t feel long, but my time at home feels short. A week is a handful of waking hours. I’ve become somebody who doesn’t want to spend any more time away from home than absolutely necessary.

My professional ambition right now is a job that allows me to come back home for lunch. That would be just wonderful.

Time is catching up with me. It was to be expected. As novelty and excitement starts to wear off, a more sustainable rythm needs to be found.

I’m starting to feel tired. That’s what I’m paid for, my dad would say. Not badly tired, just, tired. So I’m being careful before I need to be.

Sleep. Don’t take on too much. Give myself time to breathe, and more importantly, think. Thinking is so important. At work, too. Taking time to look out of the window while solutions take shape. Doing is not only typing on a keyboard. I am perfectly comfortable with the fact my work requires me to think. 15 years ago, I’m not sure I was.

I had to take a day off work on my first week, to teach elsewhere (a preexisting commitment). At first I thought I’d catch up those hours. But after a couple of weeks I discovered that making up for 8+ hours when you’re already working 4.5 days a week, and commuting 2.5 hours a day is not easy. I decided to stop trying to stretch my already long days to make up for it, and cash in a day of vacation instead. A wise decision: I now have a few hours in the bank, which means I don’t have to worry about those days where I have to leave work early, and I can be home at 6pm.

Having a basic structure for my time is interesting. It’s something I can build upon. It’s constraining, of course: I have few hours every day to spend with my old cat Quintus, less time to see friends and family. I’m alseep by 10pm, up at 5.30. My struggle of all these last years to try to introduce some routine in my too-free life has been solved for me – dramatically.

My weeks pretty much all look the same now. Head off to Fribourg on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Lausanne on Wednesday, work in the morning, errands and appointments and the odd client appointment in the afternoon. Laundry on Friday evening when I get home. Maybe grocery shopping too – doing that on Saturday is just miserable. And I discovered last week that doing laundry and grocery shopping on Friday means that when I get up on Saturday, I’m pretty much “free”.

I’m discovering that I don’t have that much practice functioning when tired. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. Previously, when I was tired, I’d rest, and try and do things when I was in good shape. Now, the calendar rather than how I feel determines what I do. It’s a strange change.

[en] There is a large chunk of my time that I don't "own" anymore, as it is my employer's, in a way. It's making me reflect on how I did or didn't protect my working time as a freelancer, and how that is indicative of my priorities regarding earning money vs. "social obligations".

[en] I've just finished my third week as an employee. Everything is going fine. I'm happy. Who would have thought that working nearly full-time a good hour of home could feel restful? I'm tired, of course, but my cognitive load has shrunk.